<p>In West African countries，domestic rice production should be improved to overcome the dependence on imported rice. In order to achieve that，upgrading the domestic rice value chain needs to improve for maintaining high competitiveness of domestic rice relative to imported rice. This study investigates consumer preferences of rice in Mauritania.We used best-worst scaling and latent class analysis. The results emphasize the importance of cleanliness attributes in consumer choice and identify three latent segments: "preferences for price and cleanliness attributes"，"strong preference for cleanliness attributes"，and "preference for clean rice with high swelling capacity and safety attributes".</p>